


A Thousand Worlds

by afterandalasia



Category: Moana (2016)
Genre: Baby Moana Waialiki, Canon Universe, Chocolate Box Exchange 2017, Coda, Gen, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Growing Old, Introspection, Ocean, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 03:30:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9302273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: When Moana is a few months old, Tala takes her down to the water for the first time, and is sure that something more is waiting.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reeby10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/gifts).



> Happy Chocolate Box, reeby10! I hope that you get the fics of your dreams. I just loved the prompt about Tala being the first one to take Moana down to the ocean, and could not resist having a go.
> 
> For the flow of the story, I have given Tui's best friend (from the flashback) a name - Manuia. It is a Samoan name meaning happy.

The ocean runs in all of their blood. Tala knows it, as sure as she knows her own name or that the sun on her skin feels right. Even when she was young, she would dance with the waves, feeling their ebb and flow in the movements of her own body. Now she is old, but she dances still, and knows that the ocean will dance long after she is gone.

She names her son Tui, and does not stop him from loving the sea. She was there when his father showed him the path to the boats, and though she did not see them herself she dreamt of them, abstract flashes of sails and leaping hulls. She still dreams of them now, although she knows in her heart that she will not be the one to sail upon them.

When Tui loses Manuia, he loses the sea as well. Tala sees it in his eyes and hears it in his angry words, and when he rebuilds the wall about the boats it is stronger than ever. But Tala knows that part of him is gone as well, and that the salt in his blood has become a burden that he carries.

She is already old when Moana is born. She felt old from the moment that she saw her son's eyes fade, from the moment that he lost the sea and his world shrank down to one island. After his father died, her world shrank as well, and by the time Moana comes into the world red-faced and screaming fit to summon the gods it is like the last blazing light of the sunset.

Moana will be the sunset, Tala is sure of it. She will stand at the end of something, and it will be beauty or horror. The only question is which.

When the heady love of new motherhood has started to give way to the tiredness that comes with a small child, and Moana is a few months old, Tala knows that grandmothers come into their own. She takes Moana down to the beach in the warm, lazy light of the afternoon. soft and golden on their skin. Moana stirs in her sleep, then opens her eyes, still blue-tinged with youth. Another moment when the sea is in them all, before it is swallowed up into forgetfulness. Her eyes immediately fix on Tala's wiggling fingers, but her coordination is not the best and her waving hands cannot quite catch the teasing movements.

"I know you will not remember this, my granddaughter," says Tala, quietly, "but perhaps, one day, it will matter to you."

She dips her fingers into the water by which they sit, the cool touch of the sea, then places them above Moana's head again. Drips of water fall, one on her forehead, one on her nose, and Moana blinks and giggles and tries to catch them from the air. One splashes against her palm, quite by accident, and her fingers close around it.

Tala laughs, as well. "I see the water in you, Moana," she says. She taps her granddaughter on the nose, and is rewarded with another gurgle. "And I hope you see it too."

Her fingers trace over the first thin curls of hair on Moana's head.

"One day," she says, more softly, thinking of how Tui had once splashed in the waves and looked at the sea as if it were a thousand worlds waiting to be discovered. "One day, I hope that you will see it all."


End file.
